Prepared for the Worst - Meet the Israeli Academy for National Resilience

The sound of sirens is everywhere, rockets are spotted in the sky by terrified civilians, while the damage from previous rocket attacks has not yet been fixed. Many people still don’t have electricity after a rocket damaged the power grid, so to help, the municipality started distributing generators, but the supply is running short. People without shelter are flooding the municipal hotlines, asking for a place to hide, and are directed to the public school downtown, which was converted into a public shelter with running water and supplies for the needy, but the sirens don’t stop ringing…

While this was not a situation playing out in real-time, it was a simulation of what a future war between Israel and the Hezbollah terrorist army could look like on Israel’s home front. The simulation was directed by the Israel National Resilience Academy, one of the most unique departments in the IDF’s Home Front Command, responsible for preparing and training local authorities, municipalities and government branches to deal with emergency events. The simulation took place in the Municipality of Karmiel, a large city in the north of Israel, and was attended by all of the municipality’s personnel, including the mayor of the city.

LTC Shay, commander of the West Galilee Subdistrict under the Home Front Command’s North District and the commander of the simulation, told us that “this is the second out of two days we are doing with Karmiel’s municipality. The first day was in Karmiel, where we developed with them their roles during emergency events and their emergency plans. Today, the municipality came to the Resilience Academy’s simulator, where we will test the municipality’s emergency response under pressure and in a developing crisis situation. After the simulation, our professional team will reflect on their work and help the municipality map their strengths and weaknesses.” 

“By their nature” LTC Shay assesses , “municipalities and local authorities are mainly focused on the daily routine, and for that reason, it was really important to us to get them to the simulation here, out of their comfort zone”. LTC Shay is clear on what he wants to happen at the end of this day: “My goal is that the people here will understand the importance of being prepared for an emergency event, and to build with them a working plan to improve Karmiel’s emergency response if a real event were to occur”.

From the beginning, it was clear how seriously Karmiel’s municipality is taking the event. the entire municipality’s personnel was divided into 8 emergency ensembles, operating every part of Karmiel’s emergency response, from the logistics ensemble, responsible to provide shelter, food and medicine to the needy, to the communications ensemble, which publicize emergency  guidelines and operated the municipality’s emergency hotline, all directed by the main headquarters operated by Karmiel’s mayor and the municipality’s Director General.

(LTC Shay (right) alongside Karmiel’s mayor Mr Moshe Kuninsky (left))

LTC Shay told us about his role as the commander of the Western Galilee Subdistrict: “My goal, as the Home Front Command’s commander in this subdistrict, is to direct efforts of protection and aid to Israeli civilians in emergency situations. Emergency could obviously be a military operation, but I’m also directing plans during internal emergencies such as an earthquake or a pandemic. My subdistrict is extremely diverse, with two big cities, Karmiel and Acre, and over 20 regional authorities, most of which are Arab and Druze, and a total of 350 thousand civilians. The subdistrict contains all the facets of Israeli society, from Arabs, through Ultra-Orthodox, to a large community of people who came to Israel from the former USSR. Our goal is to save people’s lives, no matter their identity, gender and religious belief and throughout past events, like the Covid pandemic, we developed mutual trust and unique ways to approach each population, and I’m sure we will use that if another emergency event will occur”.

Throughout the day the Resilience Academy simulated a crisis event in a scenario of a war with Hezbollah. Shay told us that “Throughout the last few years, Hezbollah made a great effort to expand and improve their missiles and rockets supplies, and in case of a military confrontation with the IDF, we know Hezbollah will make a great effort targeting civilian population centers and infrastructure, as they did in the Second Lebanon War in 2006, and as they continuously threat to do. We believe even Arab populations would suffer missile attacks, and we are working with Arab local authorities to train and prepare them for such a scenario.”

(A home in the northern village Ma’alot Tarshiha, which was hit by a Hezbollah rocket during the Second Lebanon War in 2006)